UMass football player denies lewdness charges

NORTHAMPTON - A University of Massachusetts football player is awaiting a court date after pleading innocent to several sex charges in Northampton District Court.

Spencer R. Ridenhour, 22, of 33 South Main St., Belchertown, is charged with indecent assault and battery, open and gross lewdness and intimidating a witness. The charges stem from two separate incidents involving women in Northampton.

According to police, Ridenhour, a defensive back on the football team, was identified by a Smith College student as the man who came up behind her on the college campus and indecently touched her on March 25. Two days later, police say, Ridenhour rolled down the window of his car as a female jogger was passing by on Round Hill Road. The woman, who thought he was about to ask for directions, went to the car and saw Ridenhour masturbating, police said. Police arrested him in connection with that incident and he was arraigned on a charge of open and gross lewdness on March 28. Ridenhour pleaded innocent.

On March 29, Ridenhour made two telephone calls to the jogger's house, police said. On the second occasion, he identified himself as a police officer and said he wanted to talk to her about the incident, according to police. He was arrested again. Meanwhile, the Smith student had picked Ridenhour's picture out of a photo array. He was arraigned on that charge and intimidating a witness yesterday, pleading innocent to both.

Ridenhour paid the $250 bail set at the first arraignment and the $1,000 bail set at the second one, according to court records. All three cases have been continued to May 9.

According to a report in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, he has been suspended from the football team.